It is sometimes desirable or necessary to supply pourable dissimilar materials (e.g., liquids, particulate solids and the like) separately to the end user even though the end user may wish to use such dissimilar materials as a mixture. For example, certain chemically and/or functionally dissimilar agricultural chemicals are desirably applied to crops as an admixture so as to improve application efficiency and/or chemical efficacy. However, it is sometimes impossible to supply such agricultural chemicals to the end user in premixed batches due to chemical instability of the mixture and/or government environmental/occupational safety requirements.
It would therefore be desirable if dissimilar materials which cannot physically be stored in admixture could nonetheless be contained separately in a common storage drum so that the end user could readily dispense such materials as needed. It is toward providing such a storage drum that the present invention is directed.
In general, the present invention is embodied in a longitudinally bisected storage drum composed of a pair of hemi-cylindrical drum segments. Thus, each drum segment will be formed by a pair of semicircular end panels which are joined to, and spaced-apart by, a side wall having a hemi-cylindrical wall section and a substantially rectangular planar wall section. The planar wall section of one drum segment (the female drum segment) will, moreover, define a longitudinally oriented re-entrant groove which unites with a longitudinally oriented tongue protruding from the planar wall section of the other drum segment (the male drum segment). Therefore, when the tongue and groove are united with one another, an overall cylindrical drum structure will result.
The closely adjacent planar wall sections of each drum segment establish a diametrical parting plane when the tongue and groove are united with one another. The hemicylindrical wall segments are provided with longitudinally spaced-apart and outwardly protruding pairs of roll stops close to this parting plane. The upper semicircular end panels are each provided with a bunghole formed in relationship to the roll stops such that, when the drum structure is turned on its side and prevented from rolling by one set of roll stops, the bungholes will be substantially vertically oriented with respect to one another.
Thus, by simply reversing the vertical orientation of the bungholes (e.g., by rolling the drum along its cylindrical side wall until the it rests upon the other set of roll stops), the contents within the hemi-cylindrical drum segments can selectively be dispensed by positioning that segment's bunghole in the lower vertical position relative to the other bunghole.
Other aspects and advantages of this invention will become more clear after careful consideration is given to the detailed description of the preferred exemplary embodiments thereof which follow.